Strange friend, past, present, and to be;
Loved deeplier, darklier, understood;
Behold, I dream a dream of good,
And mingle all the world with thee. - Tennyson

Wednesday, February 15, 2006

Resolution Update #3

Damn.. time for another update? Already??

Well, can't say much has changed since the last update. I have started keeping track of my workouts and I'm proud to say that I've been to the gym every Tues/Thurs night after class. Sometimes I only get in 20 min and some nights a solid 45min. Not sure why boss man has to come in and say 'last set' at 9:45pm. C'mon, man! Gym is open until 10pm.. cut me some slack. Haven't been in on the weekends since I've been back in MI the past 2 weekends, but will get back on track again.

My right elbow had been bugging me, so I've been cutting back on the pushups considerably. At work, if I'm in the bathroom or waiting for food to cook in the kitchen, I'll place my hands on the counter and knock out a few sets of push ups. I try to vary my hand placement with these since they are a little easier since I'm not working against gravity that much, and focus on either keeping my hands close to my body (triceps) or hands together.

When I do my negatives or 'assisted' pull-ups with the squat rack (assisted since my feet are on the ground), I only do a few reps. My goal is 2 pull ups, so with the assisted pull ups, I'll do 3 sets of 3 pull ups.. slow and controlled. For the negatives, I can still only hang for about 4 seconds (forearms and biceps at 90 deg angle). I'll do about 5 sets of these with 15-20 sec rest in between. More rest depending on how much time I have, but I've been ending my workouts with the pull-ups and am usually rushed to get a few negatives in.

I have noticed a little bit of improvement. With the negatives, after slowly lowering myself down, I usually just let go of the bar when arms are fully extended. Last night, instead of letting go, I started the pull up motion. The arms look like they are bending a few degrees more than last time, but it's probably not that noticeable. However, it doesn't feel as strained; it's more of a natural, dare I say 'fluid', movement.

Again, I think the biggest thing holding me back is the weight. I have a couple races coming up in less than a month, so the cardio is going to skyrocket. I'm getting a better handle on what I eat and, aside from the Lucky Charms, I don't eat a lot of junk anyway. I just eat too much fatty stuff - pistaschios and peanut butter to be exact. It's good fat, but I need to cut back the quantity of each. I did run a few miles at lunch today, biked 75 min tonight, and did a short 2.5 mile run off the bike. Not bad.. and I'm not too sore.